Proactive Data Mining with Decision Trees

Haim Dahan, Shahar Cohen, Lior Rokach, Oded Maimon

This book explores a proactive and domain-driven method to classification tasks. This novel proactive approach to data mining not only induces a model for predicting or explaining a phenomenon, but also utilizes specific problem/domain knowledge to suggest specific actions to achieve optimal changes in the value of the target attribute. In particular, the authors suggest a specific implementation of the domain-driven proactive approach for classification trees. The book centers on the core idea of moving observations from one branch of the tree to another. It introduces a novel splitting criterion for decision trees, termed maximal-utility, which maximizes the potential for enhancing profitability in the output tree. Two real-world case studies, one of a leading wireless operator and the other of a major security company, are also included and demonstrate how applying the proactive...